Epifany Slavinetsky

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Epifany Slavinetsky (Епифаний Славинецкий in Russian) was an ecclesiastical expert of the Russian Orthodox Church who helped Patriarch Nikon to revise the ancient service-books, thus precipitating the Great Schizm of the national church.

In the 1620s, he attended a school in Kiev and later furthered his education abroad. Epifany was one of the most educated people of his period that came from Central and Eastern Europe. He came to master the Latin, Polish, Ancient Greek and Hebrew languages. On his return to Kiev, he took monastic vows in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. In the late 1630s, he compiled the first Latin-Church Slavonic lexicon, which he would revise on several occasions.

Upon hearing about Epifany's learning, Russian Tsar Alexis invited him to correct the ecclesiastical books of Muscovy. Epifany arrived to Moscow in 1649 and visited the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra the same year. He quickly managed to secure the patronage of the boyar Boris Morozov and Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod, who was presently elected Patriarch.

Epifany joined the Chudov Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin, where he was appointed head of the Patriarchal school and charged with administrating the Printing Yard. It was he who revived the mediaeval tradition of delivering sermons in Russian churches. In the 1650s and early 1660s, he was busy revising the Muscovite service-books and translating Erasmus and Copernicus from Latin.

When Nikon fell into disgrace, the scholar supported him and proved that his deposition was contarary to the laws of the church. He spent his last years translating the Septuagint and the New Testament, as commissioned by his patron Fyodor Rtishchev. Epifany died in Moscow in 1675.